Penske deal with Front Row at Richmond to help Logano? UPDATE: Penske Racing may have cut a deal with Front Row Motorsports in the closing laps at Richmond for track position to help get #22-Joey Logano in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship. In radio communications reviewed Wednesday by The Associated Press for Front Row driver #38-David Gilliland, his spotter informs the team of a request to let Logano pass him in the final laps of Saturday night's race. Logano was trying to claim a spot in the 12-driver Chase field. Both Penske and Front Row are Ford teams and thus considered partners. A voice on the radio, believed to be crew chief Frank Kerr, asks who the request is coming from. The spotter replies: "We've got the big dog and all his cronies." Kerr then says: "Travis knows what I've been asking for," an apparent reference to Penske Racing competition director Travis Geisler. Logano passed Gilliland on a restart and finished 22nd, one spot ahead of Gilliland and good enough for a berth in the Chase field. "Good job, good job, man," the spotter says after the race. "Hopefully we'll get something out of that." Statistics analyzed by AP also show Gilliland's lap times dropped off by almost 1 second from the times he was running prior to the radio communication.(Associated Press)(9-11-2013)UPDATE: "NASCAR is aware of reports about the #22 and #38 radio communications at Richmond International Raceway and is looking into it, but has yet to see anything in full context that requires any action."(NASCAR)(9-11-2013)

This is not passing the smell factor again..........I hope this opens the door for Jeff!

Whoa, well now......I thought logano was just a 'blind' beneficiary of the MWR's shenanigans, turns out his team mightve cut a deal. This is crazy, i expect a NASCAR penalty to come through if the radio proves to be as d-a-m-n-i-n-g as the brian vickers radio. If not, NASCAR continues to be a farce.

Last edited by KMOAutobahn on Wed Sep 11, 2013 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wednesday afternoon, the sanctioning body [NASCAR] issued a statement on the issue:

"NASCAR is aware of reports about the No. 22 and No. 38 radio communications at Richmond International Raceway and is looking into it, but has yet to see anything in full context that requires any action."

Yeah if what i heard that quicken loans and the other sponsors got involved to get the MWR punished is true, I cant imagine any bigger dawg than Hendrick Motorsports and their armada of sponsors pushing for Jeff Gordon to get in now that they have this opening.....

one thing i learned what has gone down or could go down for joe, the drivers are not at fault here, they were doing what the higher ups wanted done, so to this day i have no beef with brian, clint or even joe, i think joe has a great chance to finish high in the standings this year, if not win the cup.

In all honesty, logano probably should NOT have made it in if everything were gravy. At the time of the last caution, logano was still a lap down in 25th spot. At the time, Jeff Gordon was good to clear by 1 point and closing in on Martin Truex for 7th. Ryan Newman and Kasey kahne wouldve been WC 1 and WC 2 with 2 wins and logano wouldve been left out with truex.

In fact, it was only because MWR parked both their cars and now presumably was forked over a spot by david gilliland that logano picked up 3 spots to knock Gordon out of the chase.

Knowing the prevalence of 'team orders' in nascar, it's not surprising this was the case for logano making it into the top 10. However, given that NASCAR specifically instructed 'no funny business' in the driver's meeting, they now no choice but to penalize logano in the same fashion they penalized truex (who probably had no idea, but benefited massively from race 'fixing' by his team) or else they end up looking like hypocrites.

I honestly dont HOW theyre going to penalize logano (whether they take him out of the chase, or just give him a points deduction after the points reset).... but clearly, they need to take action because that snippet of radio is just as questionable as vickers' radio with ty norris